R/redundancy.R

In netropy: Statistical Entropy Analysis of Network Data

#' @title Redundant Variables & Dimensionality Reduction
#' @description Finds redundant variables in a dataframe consisting of discrete variables.
#' @param dat dataframe with rows as observations and columns as variables.
#' Variables must all be observed or transformed categorical with finite range spaces.
#' @param dec  the precision given as number of decimals used to round bivariate entropies
#' in order to find redundant variables (the more decimals, the harder to detect redundancy). Default is 3.
#' @return Binary matrix indicating which row and column variables hold the same information.
#' @details   Redundancy is defined as two variables holding the same information (bivariate entropies)
#' as at least one of the variable alone (univariate entropies).
#' Consider removing one of these two variable from the dataframe for further analysis.
#' @author Termeh Shafie
#' @seealso \code{\link{entropy_bivar}},
#' @references Frank, O., & Shafie, T. (2016). Multivariate entropy analysis of network data.
#' \emph{Bulletin of Sociological Methodology/Bulletin de Méthodologie Sociologique}, 129(1), 45-63.
#' \cr
#'
#' Nowicki, K., Shafie, T., & Frank, O. (Forthcoming 2022). \emph{Statistical Entropy Analysis of Network Data}.
#' @examples
#' # use internal data set
#' data(lawdata)
#' df.att <- lawdata[[4]]
#'
#' # two steps of data editing:
#' # 1. categorize variables 'years' and 'age' based on
#' # approximately three equally size groups (values based on cdf)
#' # 2. make sure all outcomes start from the value 0 (optional)
#' df.att.ed <- data.frame(
#'    senior   = df.att$senior,
#'    status   = df.att$status,
#'    gender   = df.att$gender,
#'    office   = df.att$office-1,
#'    years    = ifelse(df.att$years<=3,0,
#'               ifelse(df.att$years<=13,1,2)),
#'    age      = ifelse(df.att$age<=35,0,
#'                 ifelse(df.att$age<=45,1,2)),
#'    practice = df.att$practice,
#'    lawschool= df.att$lawschool-1)
#'
#' # find redundant variables in dataframe
#' redundancy(df.att.ed) # variable 'senior' should be omitted
#' @export
#'
redundancy <- function(dat, dec = 3) {
  H2 <- entropy_bivar(dat)

  # given input argument dec giving precision, round H2 matrix
  H2 <- round(H2, dec)

  # print out redundant variables
  H2[lower.tri(H2)] <- H2[upper.tri(H2)]
  red <- H2
  for (i in 1:ncol(H2)) {
    red[i,] = diag(H2)[i] == H2[i,]
  }
  diag(red) = 0

  if (sum(red) == 0) {
    message('no redundant variables')
    return()
  }

  return(red)
}